"Damn. I hate this stupid thing..."
"Nat, you have to give it a chance to catch up with you." Adam laughed. "How can you be so incredibly patient with your kids at work, but your computer makes you worse than a 2-year old?"
Natalie drummed her fingers on the edge of the keyboard. She glanced over her shoulder at Adam and said, "Yeah, but my kids have problems. They're supposed to go slow, make bad decisions, have tantrums -- and I get paid to be patient with them. I shelled out $1300 bucks and this thing is just supposed to work."
"Okay then. Think about it this way. You bought a really high-functioning idiot savant..."
Natalie interrupted him, "'Autistic.' Come on, you know how I feel about that phrase." Given her job and daily interaction with autistic kids, she hated the 'idiot' term.
"Right—sorry." Adam winced at his stupidity for forgetting how committed Natalie was to her kids. "Just realize that thing's got a limited set of tricks but can do them really fast. Other than that, it's a hunk of metal, sand, plastic and..."
Natalie had heard this before from Adam and still didn't buy it. "And it's supposed to do what I need it to do, when I need it to do it. Oh, I'm tired of this for now; forget it. I just wanted to show you the pictures from our drive up the coast last month."
Once Natalie's frustration had kicked-in, Adam had left the couch and approached the table where she sat with her laptop. He was reluctant to leave now that he'd found such a good excuse to be close to her. Her lavender shampoo mingled with fragrant steam rising from the tea next to her machine. With her leaning over to put her hands on the keyboard, her ripped-collar t-shirt was hanging tantalizingly open from his perspective. He noticed the lack of any outline from bra straps on her shoulders and the soft cotton came to clear points rather than rounded on her chest. He said. "Hang on. A little patience if you please. See—it finally caught up. Next time don't hit the thing that says 'F: Drive' when you're not on your network at school. When you do it here, you'll just end up sitting and waiting while it tries to find something that's not there."
Natalie gave an unhappy sigh. "So you're saying this was..."
"User error. Yep—that about sums it up." Adam had enjoyed her big sigh which had drawn her shoulders back and he'd been rewarded with a momentary view of the vale between the rise of each breast when she'd exhaled. Natalie wasn't 'stacked' as his friends would say, but she was curved in all the right ways as far as he was concerned. When she'd let her breath go, Adam had glimpsed the elegant, gentle inside curve of her right breast and even the pale skin of her mid-section which was all scrunched due to her seated position.
Adam reached around her shoulder and said, "Where'd you put the pictures? In here? Ah—look there they are; exactly where they're supposed to be." Adam let go of the mouse and, as casually as he could, placed his hand flat on her back. He reveled in the warmth of her skin through the thin shirt but was careful not to linger. "Alright. Let me see this beach you were telling me about."
"Finally! Okay—so. Remember that Laurie and I went down to that Development Techniques conference in Ashland? When it was done, we decided to take an extra day off and come back the long way. We cut out to 101 and poked our way north. I think we must have checked out a dozen beaches. We were trying to find really out-of-the-way spots. We found a place...hell, I don't even know its name...a little more than an hour south of Newport that was amazing. It was the best tide pool-ing I'd ever seen."
Adam went and got a chair from the eating nook next to the small kitchen. Natalie shifted her chair over a foot or so in order for them both to see, leaned back and clasped both hands around her tea cup.
Adam asked, "Must've been cold. March can be nasty on the coast."
"No, actually. We got lucky. It was a crazy beautiful day—we couldn't believe how warm it was. We must've found that little inlet at low tide because the rocks were totally exposed. There were, like, thousands of sea stars on the ocean-side of the rocks. Yeah, see—in that one there we found a whole mound of them stacked on top of each other."
Natalie had happily relinquished the mouse to Adam. He was flipping slowly through the pictures and commenting on items of interest. She was looking at his profile and was struck once again by her reaction to him. He was a 'guy, guy.' He was a sports fan, he wasn't into his appearances but wasn't a slob, he had a goatee, he was athletic, he liked to wear beat-up baseball hats...he should have been blah. And yet, she knew he was more than casually athletic with his road cycling which made him trim and really fit. The same focus that he applied to his biking seemed to carry into other areas of his life as well. Yet for all the guy-ness he was so thoughtful—he was always aware of the people around him in a supportive way without simpering. She'd become increasingly attracted to him which was a complete surprise to her. Girls were usually more her speed.
"Nat—you nerd." Adam was laughing at a picture of Natalie doing her best explorer-on-a-rock, eyes shielded by a hand, looking into the distance pose. "You look more like you've got sand in your eyes."
Natalie hit him on the shoulder. She was about to say something pithy back, but remembered a moment too late that this was the last picture she wanted him to see. She'd been leaning back with her tea and was a beat slow in reaching for the mouse.
"Ah—wow." Adam blushed crimson but couldn't take his eyes away from the picture in front of him. Natalie was laying on a smooth rock in the sun. She wore only a pair of panties, her shirt having been relegated to being a blanket on the rock under her. Her bra was nowhere to be found.
Natalie was frozen with indecision. Should she make a big deal of this and slam down the cover of the laptop, or just let him see the rest? Then she remembered the picture Laurie had set up with the automatic timer—kissing with bodies mashed together. Natalie felt flushed at the memory of had happened next when Laurie had eaten her on that rock, in the open. It had been one of the most exhilarating rushes she'd ever had. Yet she knew Adam had no clue that she and Laurie did more than just share the apartment.
Adam wanted to look away, but he was entranced. Flat stomach, panties snuggly encasing her mons, the high curve of her hips and her chest was perfection for his tastes. Her nipples were clearly hard from the cool ocean air, and there was a slight rise to her breasts even though she was on her back. Her eyes were closed and her face was turned to the sun with her dark hair splayed across the rock. He knew he shouldn't be seeing anything more even if he was dying to click the mouse again. He gently closed the laptop cover and sat back; he didn't know what to say. Not that he could have said much with a mouth and throat that had hastily gone dry.
Natalie broke the silence, "Err, sorry about that." She gave a nervous chuckle. "I forgot to move those. I hate that stupid machine."
"Don't worry about it. I'll never complain about pictures like that." He rotated in the chair to face her. "For what it's worth—you're gorgeous." Adam's blush deepened further. He wanted to say more but couldn't bring himself to do it. How he could be twenty-six and still unable to talk directly to Natalie about his feelings for her? Of course, who was he kidding—this was the first time he'd ever allowed himself to feel this way. About anyone. There'd been plenty of girlfriends but they'd never penetrated his resolve or had this effect on him. His hesitance with Natalie was a constant source of frustration.
Natalie was flattered by his reaction. His embarrassment was genuine and the fact that he'd lingered on the picture before being a gentleman by turning it off was so 'him.' Natalie made up her mind and started to lean in to kiss him when a key jangled in the lock to the apartment. The metallic clang of the deadbolt shattered the moment.
